


thundering hearts

by AllieRat



Category: RWBY
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Nothing Ever Happened AU, Pyrrha Nikos Lives, and nothing bad ever happened because i said so, everything goes smoothly and they all graduate happily, just pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 15:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19770721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllieRat/pseuds/AllieRat
Summary: The rain is too loud, and Ruby struggles with a nightmare. Pyrrha won't let anything hurt Ruby as long as she's there.





	thundering hearts

Rain fell harshly against the window panes, rolling down the clean glass in rivulets. It bounced off of the wooden roof, the sound comforting if a bit loud. Every now and then, flashes of light would light up the dark home, chased by deafening claps of thunder. Ruby lay awake drowsily, wrapped up in the blanket on her bed as she stared at the window in silence. She sighed and shut her eyes, but a light flashing through her room made her furrow her brows in annoyance, and the loud thunder that followed shortly afterwards made her open her eyes again.

She frowned and sat up in her bed, then turned over and laid down again. The blanket tangled around her legs uncomfortably, somehow making her feel too hot in the cool room. She glanced at the clock beside her bed, sighing when it showed the time to be just a few minutes after midnight. For a moment, she lays there without moving.

When another clap of thunder shakes her to the bone, she stands up and makes her way out of the bed. She stumbles while trying to disentangle herself from the blanket, but manages to fall out in a somewhat-graceful manner. She grumbles, rubs her eyes, then heads off with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders to find her girlfriend.

She thinks of her, the love of her life, and a smile plays across her lips for a moment. Almost immediately, however, the image of a smiling Pyrrha Nikos is replaced with the image of a dark night – a ruined tower, molten clockwork lay in heaps around the building, a woman in a dress grins wickedly. She fires a single arrow, and Ruby feels a pain in her chest ache as if _she_ were the one who had gotten shot.

Her breaths quicken, and she looks around the darkness of her home with wide eyes as if she expected it all to happen right here, right now. She shakes her head, rids herself of the mental image, and continues onward with slightly faster steps.

 _It's all a dream,_ she tells herself, _just a bad dream._

Nothing of the like had ever happened, of course, but for some odd reason she often got that recurring nightmare out of nowhere. Yang had never lost a part of herself like Ruby dreamt she had, her team had never fallen apart and split to different parts of the world, Penny had never been killed, and Pyrrha...

Ruby spots a soft, yellow light on the other end of the living room and she rushes toward it, wrapping herself tighter in her blanket as if she were a child again. It's been years since she had graduated from Beacon Academy with her team and her friends, but sometimes she still felt like that fresh-faced little girl from so long ago.

She enters the kitchen and almost wants to shut her eyes against the light, but she sees Pyrrha standing at the counter mixing herself a drink – tea, perhaps, since Pyrrha always had a nice cup of tea when she'd gotten home from a long mission – and she is too afraid to close her eyes. Too afraid that, if she did close them, her dream would become reality and the love of her life would disappear before her very eyes.

Ruby finds herself needing to feel Pyrrha, to reach out and hold her hand to make sure she was real.

So she walks forward quietly and reaches out a hand, and Pyrrha nearly startles at the sudden contact to her damp shoulder. The silverware in the kitchen cabinet rattle around for a moment, but don't fly out at Ruby as they would have a few years ago. Ruby snickers in amusement, and Pyrrha turns around with wide eyes. When she notices who it was, she pouts childishly and leans forward, wrapping her toned arms around Ruby.

“You scared me! I could have... tossed some spoons at you..?” She mutters off, just now realizing that she probably wouldn't have done any serious damage even if she hadn't had better control over her semblance than she used to. She feels Ruby laugh against her shoulder, and she relaxes.

Ruby reaches up and clasps her arms around her girlfriend, smiling contentedly. This was proof enough that she was real, she was here, and she still loved Ruby. She shuts her eyes and inhales deeply, smelling the rain on Pyrrha's hair. She must have gotten home just a few minutes ago then and dried off quickly, and Ruby wonders briefly how she hadn't heard her enter their home. The rain and thunder must have masked the noises she made, Ruby reasons.

She didn't even notice that she was shaking until Pyrrha pulled away gently, placing a cool hand against Ruby's cheek. A worried frown marred her beautiful face.

“Are you alright, love? What's the matter?” She asks gently.

Ruby doesn't even think about hiding the truth from Pyrrha. Years ago, she would have felt stupid for having nightmares about something that had never even happened, and probably would have waved it off as nothing. But she looks into Pyrrha's beautiful green eyes, and she sees all the trust and warmth and love in them, and she can't imagine ever lying to this woman.

“I had that dream again,” she sighs, reaching up with her own hand to clasp it over Pyrrha's. Pyrrha's eyes widen, then narrow. She leans in and places a kiss to Ruby's lips so soft and warm that it makes the younger woman want to melt against her.

Pyrrha pulls away slowly, and Ruby sighs quietly. The blanket falls from her shoulders onto the ground, but she feels perfectly warm and safe here, in her lover's arms. Pyrrha smiles down at her – though Ruby had certainly grown up through the years, Pyrrha hadn't stopped growing either and she was still a tad bit taller than Ruby – and reaches up to clasp her face in both of her hands.

“You know that I'm here for you, right?” She asks softly. Ruby inhales softly. “You know that that nightmare is _just_ a nightmare, and I'm not going anywhere, right? Penny is safe back in Atlas getting her upgrades, Yang is off traveling with Blake, Weiss is doing Huntress work across Vale, and they're all safe and _happy_.”

Ruby shuts her eyes and sees all the images in her head – a dark night with a ruined tower, blood and death around her, Grimm inside of Beacon Academy somehow. As Pyrrha speaks, the images are gradually replaced with better, more _accurate_ images.

She sees team RWBY graduating Beacon, all grinning and watching team JNPR getting their official Hunters and Huntresses documents next. She sees her first real mission with her team, she sees them all going out for food in celebration afterwards – Weiss pays and Yang makes some awful joke about rich girls that makes her roll her eyes and Blake laughs quietly. She sees the whole team going down to Patch to meet her father, sees him cry embarrassingly years later when Yang stands up and announces that she and Blake were getting married.

But a memory that overlaps all the others plays out in her mind, and she is nearly brought to tears when she remembers the day Pyrrha came up to her, all red-faced and nervous, and told her how much she loved her, how glad she was to have gotten to grow and train beside her.

Ruby opens her eyes again, and Pyrrha is still there, still smiling her same beautiful, warm smile, and still the most stunning and amazing woman Ruby had ever met.

“I love you so much,” she whispers with tears in her eyes – but not tears of fear and hurt. They were tears of happiness, and a warmth spread through her chest that rid herself of the ache she'd felt earlier at the nightmares.

Pyrrha blushes again and grins wide, still, even after all the times Ruby has said those words, just so happy to hear it again.

“I love you too, Ruby,” she whispers back with just as much emotion in her voice. She leans in again, and Ruby meets her halfway this time. They stay there a bit longer than they had with the last kiss, and when they pull away, Ruby doesn't even remember the fear and anxiety she'd felt from the dream. She only sees the light of her life before her, and she smiles.

“Let's get you back to bed, love,” Pyrrha whispers against her lips. Ruby nods, knowing there was no need for more words.

They pick up the blanket and go, and when they settle into bed together with their arms wrapped around each other, Ruby doesn't startle at the thunder anymore. She doesn't shut her eyes against the lightning, doesn't sigh sadly at the rain. She only places her head on Pyrrha's chest and listens to her heart, and somehow it sounds louder to her than the thunder ever could.


End file.
